The title says it all. I was planning for a bigger production year this season. Just the natural progression of things when you start breeding and having goals. I haven’t produced more than 3-4 clutches in a season. So before all of the COVID-19 stuff started happening, I decided to go for around 10 clutches this season. Now that is a big difference from 3-4 clutches but I do a few shows throughout the year and plan on having a bigger online presence. One of my big plans for this year is Peterson striped coastals from my big girl Jade. She produced a 20+ egg clutch for Kyle Rozecki in 2016 so I had big hopes for her. This was also going to be my first year producing Nova Guinea carpets. These were two projects I was very excited about getting off the ground.

So as you can see, the nova guineas started great. I ended up with 11 good eggs. Couldn’t be happier and I tried my best to get the word out about these guys since most keepers didn’t even know about them. The amount of people reaching out to me wanting to know more about the nova guineas has been amazing. The hobby seems to be heading in a direction where morphs aren’t the main focus of everyone’s collection, which in my opinion is a great thing.

Here is the nova guinea clutch after five weeks of incubation. 9 of the 11 eggs have gone downhill. This clutch was one that I had a lot of excitement for. But as this hobby is capable of doing, it will humble you from time to time. And remind you that we are still dealing with animals and even if you do “everything” right, things can still go down hill. There is always next year.

The second clutch i really wanted to be successful were the Peterson coastals. The Peterson project is honestly my favorite project I have. I did hatch out 2.2 in 2018 so I do have up and coming animals to continue the line. This season I was finally going to get to pair up my big girl Jade that has laid 20+ egg clutches in the past before she came to me. So to say I was very hopeful for a big clutch was an understatement.

Catching her laying was really cool. I have never actually seen a snake lay its eggs and I was able to watch one as she laid it. Watching her lay that egg was up there with watching the maternal incubation process. In the picture you can see that there is one good egg and one slug so I didn’t expect all of them to be fertile. She was in the beginning of laying so I was expecting a lot more eggs….

And this is what I woke up to the next morning. There goes the hobby again, humbling me. I was expecting a huge clutch and ended up with just a couple viable eggs. Now with all that being said, I still have a couple good eggs from both of the clutches I have discussed here as well as other clutches still to be laid. I could have gotten all slugs, so at least I have the possibility of hatching one or two from each clutch. There is also a part of me that looks at this as a blessing in disguise with everything going on in the world right now. Maybe making this year my “big” year just wasn’t meant to be. On the positive side of things, I still have eggs and have a chance at producing some good stuff, just maybe not as much of it.

So up to this point I have had a lot of success in breeding the couple of seasons I have bred snakes. This is the first year I have had any real problems, if you want to call them that. I think the “failures” are what make us better keepers. No matter what the situation, try to learn something from it. I definitely have things that I think caused these two clutches to go the way they did. And I plan on making the necessary adjustments and trying again next year.